Helen Wills (1905-1998) was one of the dominant American and international female tennis players during the late 1920s and most of the 1930s. She won 31 major international tennis championships. In her prime, she won 180 straight matches against the best women in tennis without losing a single set. In 1938, she retired from tennis and became an artist, exhibiting her paintings and drawings throughout the U.S. and Europe.

Born in Centerville, California, on October 6, 1905 to Clarence Wills, a surgeon, and Catherine Wills, a teacher, Helen Newington Wills was raised in an environment of high expectations. She was tutored at home by her mother until she was eight years old. She later graduated from the top ranked Anna Head School in Berkeley, and attended the University of California at Berkeley where she became Phi Beta Kappa because of her academic excellence.

Wills and her mother were always the best of...